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TWiki 4.2 Windows Installation Guide

Purpose & Scope

This is a step by step TWiki 4.2 Windows installation guide. It should have you running your own TWiki in no time. However security issues and advanced settings are out of scope. We will take you through Apache2, Perl and TWiki installation. Basic Apache administration skills could be useful but not strictly required. Basic computer administration skills are assumed.

Warning

TWiki is straightforward to set-up on Windows. However for better performance and security you probably better off running it on a Linux machine. DownloadTWikiVM for an easy install of a Linux-based TWiki on Windows.

Prerequisites

We applied this guide on an x86 machine running Windows XP SP2 yet it should also work unmodified on Windows2003 server (you may need to disable IIS), Windows 2000 and Windows NT.

Assumptions

• We assume that you placed TWiki in C:\www\twiki, but you can change the C:\www part to the installation directory you used.
• If you are not using the Windows installer, you will find that all the "executable" Perl files in the C:\www\twiki\bin directory do not have any extensions. On Windows systems, you will have to add an extension (Apache defaults to .cgi but you may want to use .pl) to all these files, as Windows relies primarily on file extensions.
• TWiki must be installed in a directory whose name has no whitespace. If TWiki is installed in a directory whose name has whitespace, you will have to use the 8-character equivalent. For example, C:\Program Files becomes C:\Progra~1. In configuration files, you must also use the 8-character directory name convention.
• When updating TWiki's configuration files, if it asks for a directory, you can use the Linux forward slash (/). For example, C:/www/twiki will work on Windows. Most of the configuration files that TWiki generates use this convention. You can use the Windows backward slash convention (\), but TWiki's configuration page will warn about this.

Downloads

• Download the latest Apache2 release. We used apache_2.2.8-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi.
• Download ActivePerl. We used v5.12 and v5.8.8.822 (Business and Enterprise). **v5.14 will not work; it deprecates certain tags critical to Twiki functionality
• Download TWiki 4.2 zip file or get the latest TWiki:Codev.DownloadTWiki

Installations

• Install Apache2. Using the default installation settings is just fine.
• Install ActivePerl. Here again using the default installation settings should work just fine.
• Unzip your TWiki release and put it's content on a path without space characters. C:/www/twiki will do just fine.

TWiki configuration

• Go to C:\www\twiki\bin and copy/rename LocalLib.cfg.txt to LocalLib.cfg.
• Edit LocalLib.cfg and replace the line $twikiLibPath = "/absolute/path/to/your/lib"; by $twikiLibPath = "C:/www/twiki/lib";.
• Copy/Move LocalLib.cfg to c:/www/tiki/lib. If you do not do this, TWiki's configure script will assume it is not there.
• Open a command prompt cmd.exe .
• Go to C:\www\twiki\bin.
• Run perl ..\tools\rewriteshbang.pl.
• Specify C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe at the prompt and confirm.
• Go to C:\www\twiki\tools.
• Run perl rewriteshbang.pl.
• Specify C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe at the prompt and confirm.

Apache2 configuration

• Go to TWiki:TWiki.ApacheConfigGenerator. Correct the settings to suite your specifics or just copy the content of your twiki.conf from that page and put it in C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\twiki.conf.
• Open C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\httpd.conf and add the line Include conf/twiki.conf at the very end.
• Restart your Apache server using the service manager or the Apache tray icon.

More TWiki configuration

• Go to http://localhost/do/configure.
• You should get 12 warnings in the General path settings section.
• Open the General path settings section.
• Fix the path containing backslashes ( \) by replacing them with Linux-like slash ( /).
• Click the Next button.
• Enter a new password, confirm and click Change Password and Save button.
• Follow the Return to configuration link.
• Now you should get 52 errors in the Store Settings section, one warning in the Security Setup section, and one warning in the Mail and Proxies section.
• Click the Yes, I've read all the documentation button at the top of the page.
• Click the Open all options button.
• Goto the Security Setup section and select the option none for {LoginManager}.
• Goto the Store Settings section and select the option RcsLite for {StoreImpl}.
• Goto the Mail and Proxies section and provide your email address in the {WebMasterEmail} field.
• Search for the {RCS}{SearchAlgorithm} option in the Store settings section and select TWiki::Store::SearchAlgorithms::PurePerl.
• Click the Next button, provide your password and save.
• Follow the Go to the TWiki front page link.

Congratulations

You are done!

Happy TWiki

Related topics

The TWikiOnWindows 4.2.0 Installer creates a similar setup, though it adds rcs and grep. (it contains and automatically configures Apache 2.2, Perl 5.8, GNU grep and GNU rcs).

-- Contributors: StephaneLenclud - 08 Feb 2008

The Windows installer worked very well, it was up and running in minutes. But it installs everything on C:\, and it can take a while to get it to moved to a server's data drive. I also had to install more CPAN modules on ActivePerl for the plug-ins I wanted.

-- SeanCMorgan - 04 Mar 2008

Comments & Questions about this Supplemental Document Topic

Thanks Stephane for sharing this!

-- PeterThoeny - 09 Feb 2008

When you click the "Yes, I've read all the documentation" button, the settings just set (i.e. Security setup "none -> {LoginManager}" and Store settings "RcsLite -> {StoreImpl}") get erased.

Because these settings were not properly configured, I was getting "client denied by server configuration" in the apache log, and .../rcs errors when editing pages.

-- AlejandroGonzalez - 19 Feb 2008

Thanks for reporting that problem. I've amended the guide accordingly.

-- StephaneLenclud - 28 Mar 2008

> Warning: Not recommended for production Windows environments!

Every time I look at this document, that warning bothers me. Is that an "official" recommendation, or just some *nix bigot's opinion ?

If it isn't official, I think it should be deleted. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has TWiki on Windows in production.

-- SeanCMorgan - 25 Jun 2008

Good point. I'm actually no security expert and I'm not a nix geek either far from it. I was just trying the reflect the opinion of the core team I suppose who I understand mostly develop TWiki on Linux. I played down the warning.

-- StephaneLenclud - 09 Aug 2008

Great guide! Got me up and running in no time. I used the Codev.TWikiOnWindows installer and it worked beautifully. I have been a wiki champion in our organization, but had been "Squeek"ing by with a Squeek server. It is nice to see a FOSS based enterprise capable wiki implementation available. Thanks TWiki! You have a new fan.

-- GregWallace - 02 Oct 2008

Noticed that the files in bin and tools were all write-protected. So the rewriteshbang step should be preceded by a attrib -r command to remove the write protection. Otherwise the script fails.

-- GeorgeClark - 12 Oct 2008

Perl 5.14 deprecates certain tags. Updated to note that Twiki requires the older edition, 5.12.

-- DavidTurnquist - 20 Apr 2012

Thanks David for the update.

-- PeterThoeny - 2012-04-20

Hi guy, I go to "TWiki:TWiki.ApacheConfigGenerator" to create twiki.conf, I keep all default options. But when I go to http://localhost/twiki/bin/configure, it display "File not found". After that I change the option "Enter the URL path of the TWiki bin directory (mandatory)" to "/twiki/bin" and run http://localhost/twiki/bin/configure again, it displays "•This website requires you to log in". Anybody can help me please? Thanks

-- PhamQuan - 2012-05-08

Remove the <FilesMatch "^(configure)$"> ... </FilesMatch> section, it is no longer needed because the configure script has its own authentication. (I updated the ApacheConfigGenerator accordingly.)

-- PeterThoeny - 2012-05-09

i have installed the TWki 6.0.1 + Perl + Apache 2.2.8 in windows 7 and Windows server2008R2 and i followed installation guide in this link http://50nm7panwb5tevr.roads-uae.org/cgi-bin/view/TWiki/TWiki04x02WindowsInstallationGuide#Downloads and when i get to TWiki configuration i cant open http://localhost/twiki/bin/configure Any Help please

-- Khaled Altarhuni - 2015-02-21

Khaled, please do not cross-post. This question is handled at Support.SID-02027.

-- Peter Thoeny - 2015-02-22

There is/could be a typo:

In section "More TWiki configuration" Go to http://localhost/twiki/bin/configure. should be Go to http://localhost/go/configure. If the twiki conf auto generator is used. I spent quite some time to figure this out

-- TWiki Guest - 2015-04-16

Thanks for the heads up. This site is a wiki, so by all means you are invited to fix inaccurate documentation. For now I did based on your feedback.

-- Peter Thoeny - 2015-04-16